High-speed data communications require a high bandwidth channel. Optical fiber is one medium that provides high bandwidth. Optical systems send digital pulses at a high rate, e.g., 10 Gb/s. Ideally, the pulses that are transmitted are received as sent at the other end of the optical pipe. However, optical fibers have a property known as chromatic dispersion, which causes optical pulses launched along a transmission medium to propagate at different velocities for different wavelengths of light. That is, some frequency components of a launched optical pulse will propagate slower than other frequency components, thus spreading out the pulse. If left uncompensated, the effects of chromatic dispersion can degrade signal quality significantly enough to cause loss or corruption of data sent along an optically based network.